Girl Guides Bake Sale!

 We did a fund raiser for the girl guide group here. We baked cake and cookies and then sold it before the fish fry. We sold out within an hour! Next time we need to make more :) We had a lot of fun! The girls loved it!

My how life has changed!

Before I get into how my life has changed I just want to give a shout out to Kelly Carr. Thanks for you comments! My blog is being crazy and not letting me post replies, so just know that I'm reading them and enjoy hearing from you. I also got an Echo church post card from Beth this week! Made my day on Friday!

One thing that I never owned or used in the US (as far as I can remember) is a grater. Now I have no clue what I would do without it. I sometimes even consider buying a second one because mine always needs washed. What do I use it for now that I didn't need it for before, you might ask. Well, first of all cheese. As my mom can tell you I love cheese! Grated cheese is so expensive (I've even stopped buying sliced cheese) so I use my grater for that. I grate garlic, tumeric (didn't even know what that was before I came here), carrots, and even green bananas (aka green figs- for veggie burgers). But my favorite thing to use the grater for is to make "local juice"! Today I grated sour five finngers (better known as "star fruit" in the states) and made juice with that! I've grated magoes for juice (and taken an allergy pill with it, but oh so good!) as well. How my kitchen life has changed.

When I would go shopping in the states I knew in general what good prices were for things (and if I didn't know I just called Mom!). I also knew what products were supposed to look like and could tell if they weren't good. Not so here. For the most part, people are great about helping me with the things I don't know. I feel like I can ask anyone in my village and even random people all over for help. Asking for help is something that I've had to learn. I like to know things and be seen as competent. Oh, how my life has changed.

I can look at my life in so many different aspects and see how it has changed. When did I ever thing I would actually want to learn a second language? When did I ever think I would be look at as a computer expert (oh I'm not even close!)? When did I think that I would some days struggle to even understand english? Or to remember what a band-aide is called (it's a plaster) or what nail polish is (it's cutex), and is it called a pier or jetty (oh it's a jetty, call it a pier no one will understand)? And when did I think that I would use the spanish I learned in high school to figure out what day and time something is on tv (some of the stations have all of the commercials in spanish)?

Oh yes, how life has changed and how I love it!

They're hungry, will you feed them?

Yesterday at lunch I put some new books on the shelves that we got from the Ministry/District Education office. They were some easy reading books that look really neat. I wasn't sure if I should put them out or let the teachers use them  for class (because they came with reading guides and notes). Well, the kids saw them and there was no turning back! Since yesterday at noon all the books have been checked out at least once (one of the kids even checked out one of the books that had the questions and reading guide in it and checked the book that went along with it). I've seen kids (boys!) in the library checking out books who hadn't set foot in there before. They're hungry for good books to read! Literacy is a huge issue in the Caribbean and in St. Lucia. These kids are taking ownership of their library (and becoming library assistants to help others check out books). They've asked for the library to be open at least one day a week this summer. Having books available that the kids want to read will help improve their reading ablility. Will you help "feed" by children? Check out how you can help. http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/HandsWishLists.htm I'm the first school listed in St. Lucia.

So busy, yet going no where

Some days I feel like I have so much to do. I have my to do lists, several of them, and my plans, and yet I'm either at the wrong place to work on them, don't have the material, there isn't sufficient time, or I just don't want to start something new with so many other things going on! My calendar is always full of work, I keep busy with friends, church, Girl Guides, and other commitments that I just sometimes get overwhelmed and shut down for a little bit. My roommate and I in college would, at times, shut ourselves in our room and just watch movies and read. I feel like I need one of those weekends, but it's no where in sight. I never realized how much time cooking, cleaning, doing dishes, and laundry took! Now that I'm having to fit all that into my schedule, makes for some crazy times. Props to moms who do all this and more!

Time Flys

I cannot belive that it's already June. This month comes in several ways. The end of reading month. The beginning of hurricane season. The start of my 5th month here. The beginning of Carnival season. The real beginning of girl guides and the start of activities. Settling down in the library and getting the library assistants going. Trying to get this computer lab all up and running.
This job stretches me more than I imagined it would. I love it more than I thought I would. I'm busier than I thought I would be. Time is going faster. Life is different, harder, but I love everyday of it! I'm starting to pick up Kweyol words! Learning has become a way of life. I've gotten thicker skin. Things that used to bother me don't anymore. Oh, and I'm getting better at pool even though I still suck at it!! But life is good, and I can only see it getting better!

Reading Month

So the students are really enjoying getting to check out books from the school "library" that you saw in the last post. They are going through these books like crazy! My only issue is I don't know their reading levels. One 5th grader "read" through a book in a day, filled out the form for the reading competition, and brought it back for a new one. I told him to get a harder book and helped him pick one out. A teacher who came in when he was leaving informed me that he can't read. She had him last year. So we're working on figuring that out too!
So it really disturbs me when guys old enough to be my father hit on me (and then tell me age is nothing). If you were dating when I was born, please look at me as your daughter and not a potential date!! It's hard enough getting the guys my age to speak to me with respect and not expecting to sleep with me, let alone fighting the mentality of the whole village! I'm looking for friends, not a boyfriend. Check out this conversation I had with a couple of the guys in the village. True conversation: one of my guy friends comes up and tells me he'll see me later. The guys that I'm talking to say, "so that's your boyfriend" "No he's just a friend" I respond. "So he's your lover" "No, he's just a friend" "So you're sleeping with him" "no he's just a friend. We talk and hang out. That's all!"
I just wanna be FRIENDS, especially if you're old enough to be my father.

Reading/Library



I love to read! So when my school wanted me to help with the library and get it put together I was super excited. Then I saw the library...



Yes these pictures are our current library.

 

These pictures are the room we want to move our library into.

 Yes that's a class on the other side of those chalkboards. We're hoping to put up a plywood partition to make the library a second (actually a third because there's two more chalkboards father down and another class) room.

The problem: Literacy is a real issue in the Eastern Caribbean and St. Lucia. I worked with a student when I was visiting organizations who was probably 16 and couldn't tell the difference between the word he and she. Reading effects not only how well they do in school, but in St. Lucia you test into your high school. If you can't read, you don't do well on the test and don't get to go to a good school. This therefore continues to effect you in your profession and the rest of your life.

The plan: We want to move the "library" to this other room (which we are cleaning out) and make it into a resource room that our special education classes can also meet in for extra math and reading help. We want to promote a love of reading and raise the reading levels of the students. We will do this by having various activities (we're celebrating reading month right now) and hopfully forming reading clubs, additional help sessions for students struggling, forming a library club so the students are taking care of the library and promoting reading on a daily basis.

How you can help: I'm working with an organization called Hands Across the Sea http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/ They're going to help us get more books (we have one bookcase of fiction books for 190 students) that are geared for our students and we're hoping they help us with shelves too! So you can help by partnering with Hands Across the Sea. They buy used books (and new ones too) that are in used condition and ship them down to us. I've even found out that you can earmark money for our project! If you have old books gently used books that are age appropriate for 3-6 grade and would like to ship them to Hands Across the Sea you can do that as well. (Consider even donating the price that your favorite book costs.)

In the end: Reading is important to life. These kids are hungry for books and reading (I asked one student what he was doing over his break and one of the things he said was reading the book he checked out before break). But they're going to go through the books we have in no time at all.